The Uttar Pradesh government heaved a sigh of relief today,as 11 prospective bidders participated in the pre-bid meeting organised by the Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Ltd (UPECL) for supply of laptops. Officials from reputed companies like Lenovo,Intel,Toshiba,Acer,Wipro,Microsoft attended the meeting.

The government had floated e-tender for procurement of about 17.98 lakh laptops on August 29. These laptops would be distributed free of cost to Class XII pass-outs across the state,as promised by the ruling Samajwadi Party in its election manifesto.

Prior to the meeting,officials were worried due to reports that the Tamil Nadu government,which had floated a similar scheme,was finding it difficult to get 9 lakh laptops because of supply bottlenecks.

The set time frame for the selected companies to supply the laptops in UP is seven months. About 90,000 laptops are to be supplied in the first two months after the companies are issued the letter of intent,and then there is a set target for every month.

Since none of the companies expressed their inability to supply the required numbers in the set time frame,the state government was reassured that they wont face a Tamil Nadu-like situation. We shall not be facing the same problem because our basic qualification is to clear only those companies which have the existing capacity to supply at least around 3.5 lakh laptops, said a senior government officer.

The interested bidders are supposed to register themselves with the UPECL first,before participating in the bid. Sources said that all participating companies submitted Rs 20,000 today to register with UPECL. The technical bids would now be opened on October 1,whereas financial bids would be opened on October 15.